Blindness José Saramago : A Detailed Summary - 2

 

 

Chapter 8

The crowded conditions convince the second ward to bury their dead and try to regulate their garbage as the first ward has been doing. The man with the black patch turns out to be a cataract (blurred vision) patient of the ophthalmologist, and he was in the waiting room that first day of the epidemic. He has brought a radio, which the group agrees to use only for news to preserve the batteries. However, as they search for news, they hear some music, and it causes them to cry about what they are missing. The doctor’s wife is able to get the correct time and restart her watch. The man with the black patch is able to tell the group what has been happening on the outside since they were interned, which amounts to the inability of the government to meet the demands of the situation since the blindness struck everywhere with great rapidity. Each member of the

ward recalls what they were seeing when they went blind, and people realize that the girl with the dark glasses is a prostitute. The news claims that there will soon be a unified government and help for all.

 

Chapter 9

The extent of the filth and wastes in the hallways becomes a severe problem. The doctor’s wife decides to tell the others that she can see but realizes that too many demands would be made of her. The men from the third ward arm themselves with sticks and metal rods and take all the food, telling the others that they will have to pay to get rations. The inmates ask for help from the soldiers but are once again rebuffed because the soldiers have been told to let the inmates kill each other so there will be fewer of them. The head of the third ward gang reveals that he has a gun and demands payment in the form of jewelry and other valuables. The two other wards decide that they have no choice but to obey. While looking for valuables, the doctor’s wife discovers that she packed a pair of scissors. The doctor and the first blind man turn in the valuables and realize that one of the hooligans is a man who is experienced at being blind and has a Braille machine with which he is keeping inventory. The leader puts his gun against the doctor’s head, and the doctor plans to grab it but does not.

 

Chapter 10

Listening to the radio, the old man with the black eye patch hears the news station go silent as the people who are broadcasting are all struck blind. The doctor’s wife decides to go outside while the others sleep. She observes the other inmates as she walks by their beds, including a couple making love, and she cries to see that there is still tenderness amid the terror. Her wandering ends at the third ward, where she counts the hoodlums and sees that they are not distributing all the food containers but storing them.

 

Chapter 11

Conditions in the asylum become worse as the lack of proper nutrition and the spread of influenza create greater misery. When a group tries to protest to the hoodlums, their ward is given no provisions for three days in punishment. The hoodlums then demand further valuables, so the wards search to find anything that might be left and turn that over. A week later, the hoodlums demand women. After much arguing, the seven women of the first ward decide they can pay the price so that all may eat. The girl with the dark glasses has already been taking care of some of the men sexually, even the old man with the dark patch. One night, the doctor, too, crawls into her bed, not knowing that his wife is watching. The doctor’s wife, however, sits on their bed and assures them that she understands. She then tells the girl with the dark glasses that she can see.

The next day the women go to the third ward where they are brutally and repeatedly raped. As they leave, one of the women collapses from her injuries and dies. The doctor’s wife brings water in plastic bags to the ward so the women can clean themselves and the body of the dead woman.

 

Chapter 12

Four days later, the ruffians come for the women in the second ward. The doctor’s wife slips in line with them carrying her scissors and, unnoticed, goes to the leader’s bed where she thrusts the scissors into his throat. She again stabs another ruffian to death, and another woman strangles a man. The doctor’s wife shouts threats at the men, and the accountant says that he will kill her the next time he hears her voice.

The hunger that follows, though, is due more to the fact that the deliveries of food have stopped. The men finally decide to try to overtake the ruffians, and the doctor’s wife says the women should go, too, to take out their bitter feelings. The woman she saved from the hoodlum leader has come to their ward to listen and she says, “Wherever you go, I shall go.” That night, the power goes out. The next day, the assault on the ruffians results in two from the other wards being killed by gunshots. In the aftermath, the doctor’s wife tells her group that she can see. Everyone returns to their wards, but the woman who said ‘‘Wherever you go, I shall go’’ is energized by the effort and searches for a lighter she has hidden that she uses to set fire to the ruffians’ barricade. She dies, but so do all the ruffians. The fire and smoke drive the inmates out into the yard where they discover that there are no soldiers and that they are free.

 

Chapter 13

Most of the inmates wait in the yard for daytime in the vain hope that the soldiers or the Red Cross will bring food. The doctor, the doctor’s wife, the girl with the dark glasses, the boy with the squint, the first blind man and his wife, and the old man with the black eye patch huddle together planning their route to their various homes. What they find is a city in which everyone has gone blind. The doctor’s wife finds out that the soldiers went blind last and that people have left their homes in search of food with little hope of finding their houses again. Even if they do, someone else has probably taken it over. The streets are littered with trash and excrement. The doctor’s wife leaves her group in an appliance shop while she hunts for food. She finally finds a supermarket and figures that there must be a storage unit that the blind could not find. She finds a basement filled with foodstuffs and carries out as many bags as she can, but some in the outside crowd can smell the food, and she hurries away. She gets lost and sits down to cry. A dog comes up and licks away her tears. She embraces him then sees signs set up for tourists directing them to various areas. She and the dog find their way back to the group and all eat and then sleep.

 

Chapter 14

Meanwhile the group finds new clothes and shoes then makes its way to the flat of the girl with the dark glasses. There are bodies in the streets from those who left hospitals after there was no more care, from those who have died of starvation or violence or accident in their blindness. At the girl’s flat, neither her parents nor their neighbors are home except for an old woman who has been living off the chickens and rabbits in her yard, eating them raw since she could not cook. The group spends the night in the girl’s flat which is clean and comfortable. However, the lavatories are unusable, and they must all defecate in the yard. They make plans about staying together and where they will live. The old man with the black eye patch tells them he has only a room and no family. They make their way to the fifth floor, flat of the doctor and his wife, going past dogs eating a corpse, and sights of disarray that the old man with the black eye patch is able to explain, such as runs on the banks, that he remembers from before entering the asylum.

 

 

Chapter 15

The flat of the doctor and his wife is intact. The doctor’s wife finds clean clothes for everyone. She also finds bottled water, which they drink as if it were rare wine. The next morning it is raining, so the men and women take turns on the balcony, cleaning their clothes, shoes, and themselves with soap as if in a shower. The old man with the black eye patch, however, asks to wash in a tub, and the girl with the dark glasses slips into the bathroom and scrubs his back for him. The first blind man, his wife, and the doctor’s wife leave to look for food and to go to the first blind man’s flat. There they find a writer who moved in when his own flat was taken from him. The writer is very polite, and it is decided that he and his family should stay there. They all exchange news about the asylum and life on the outside. The writer has been keeping notes, even though no one may ever read them. That night the doctor’s wife reads to the group.

 

Chapter 16

Two days later, the doctor wants to visit his office. He and his wife and the girl with the blind glasses find everything undisturbed. They go to the girl’s flat and find the old woman dead and half devoured by animals. They bury the body in the back yard and leave a lock of the girl’s hair on the doorknob for her parents to find. That night the doctor’s wife reads to them again. The girl and the old man with the black eye patch talk of love and living together when they are finally able to go off on their own. In effect, they become engaged.

 

Chapter 17

The next day the doctor and his wife and the dog go back to the supermarket where they discover that people found the basement but fell to their deaths because they could not manage the treacherous stairs. The doctor’s wife is so sickened by stench and guilt that they take refuge in a church, but there is no room until the dog growls and a place opens up. She faints, but upon opening her eyes, she sees that all the sacred images in the church have had their eyes

covered with cloth or paint. When the doctor’s wife tells her husband, others hear and are frightened enough by this bizarre occurrence to go running out of the church, many leaving their belongings behind. So the doctor’s wife goes through things and finds enough food to fill their bags half full. That night, the first blind man suddenly regains his sight. The excitement that ensues causes all of them to stay awake all night waiting for their sight to return. The next to regain sight is the girl in the dark glasses who assures the old man with the eye patch that she still wants him even after seeing how he looks. The doctor gets his sight back the next dawn. The girl wants to go to her flat to leave a note for her parents and the old man goes with her. The first blind man and his wife go to their flat to find out if the writer has regained his sight, too. They all can hear people shouting in the street that they can see. The doctor’s wife says that she does not think that any of them went blind but were already blind people who could see, but do not see.